Top tips for children, parents and
everybody!

Eat
Happy

Enjoy a good variety of different foods including plenty of
fruit and veg – aim to get your 5 A DAY and to
‘eat the rainbow’ of different types and colours. Learn more about
what counts and
5 A DAY portion sizes. If you want to cook meals using fruit
and veg from different colours of the rainbow, visit our eat the rainbow
recipes page for healthy, cheap and easy recipes.

Use the Eat
Well plate as a guide to how to balance the food groups and how
much of what type of food to eat at each meal.

Drink plenty of water instead of sugary drinks
(they are high in calories and bad for our teeth). Fruit juices
should be diluted down for children and enjoyed at meal times.
Although fruit smoothies are often promoted as a healthy option
they contain lots of natural sugars so should be enjoyed as an
occasional treat.

Keep a check on portion sizes by eating ‘me size’. Try and
stick to just a couple of healthy
snacks a day between meals (things like fruit, plain
rice cakes, unsalted popcorn, crackers and nuts).

Move and play

Keep
active every day - school aged children need to build at
least 60 minutes of vigorous physical activity into their day and
under fives need to be active for at least three hours a day.
It doesn’t all need to be in one go and can be in small bursts
across the day.

If you are an
adult then you need to try and clock up at least 150 minutes of
moderate intensity activity (raises your heart rate, makes you
breathe faster and feel warmer) spread across each week or 75
minutes of vigorous activity (makes you breathe hard and fast and
makes your heart rate go up quite a bit) spread across each
week.

Remember that being active doesn’t mean you have to head down
to the gym or join a club – you can build activity into
your day by going out on your bike, walking instead of
getting the bus or doing a spot of gardening.

Children need to spend plenty of time playing
actively, such as jumping, climbing, skipping
and exploring and should try to keep a two hour maximum limit
on time spent on screens (for under fives this should be even
less).